There had never been a session of the assembly when the members had the chance to make so wide an impression. The character of the legislation on foot had called to Vandalia numbers of persons of influence from almost every part of the State. They were invariably there to secure something for their town or county, and naturally made a point of learning all they could of the members and of getting as well ac-' quainted with them as circumstances allowed. Game suppers seem to have been the means usually employed by visitors for bringing people together, and Lincoln became a favorite guest not only because he was necessary to the success of almost any measure, but because he was so jovial a companion. It was then that he laid the foundation of his extensive acquaintance throughout the State which in after years stood him in excellent stead.

The lobbyists were not the only ones in Vandalia who gave suppers, however. Not a bill was passed nor an election decided that a banquet did not follow. Mr. John Bryant, the brother of William Cullen, was in Vandalia that winter in the interest of his county, and he attended one of these banquets, given by the successful candidate for the United States Senate. Lincoln was present, of course, and so were all the prominent politicians of the State.

"After the company had gotten pretty noisy and mellow from their imbibitions of Yellow Seal and 'corn juice," " says Mr. Bryant, "Mr. Douglas and General Shields, to the consternation of the host and intense merriment of the guests, climbed up on the table, at one end, encircled each other's waists, and to the tune of a rollicking song, pirouetted down the whole length of the table, shouting, singing, and kicking dishes, glasses, and everything right and left, helter skelter. For this night of entertainment to his constituents, the successful candidate was presented with a bill, in the morning, for supper, wines, liquors, and damages, which amounted to six hundred dollars.'

But boisterous suppers were not by any means the only feature of Lincoln's social life that winter in Vandalia. There was another and quieter side in which he showed his rare companionableness and endeared himself to many people. In the midst of the log-rolling and jubilations of the session he would often slip away to some acquaintance's room and spend hours in talk and stories. Mr. John Bryant tells of his coming frequently to his room at the hotel, and sitting “with his knees up to his chin, telling his inimitable stories and his triumphs in the House in circumventing the Democrats."

Major Newton Walker, of Lewiston, who was in Vandalia at the time, says: "I used to play the fiddle a great deal and have played for Lincoln a number of times. He used to come over to where I was boarding and ask me to play, and I would take the fiddle with me when I went over to visit him, and when he grew weary of telling stories he would ask me to give him a tune, which I never refused to do.”

CHAPTER X

LINCOLN BEGINS TO STUDY LAW-MARY OWENS-A NEWSPAPER CONTEST-GROWTH OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE

As soon as the assembly closed, Lincoln returned to New Salem; but not to stay. He had determined to go to Springfield. Major John Stuart, the friend who had advised him to study law and who had lent him books and with whom he had been associated closely in politics, had offered to take him as a partner. It was a good opening, for Stuart was one of the leading lawyers and politicians of the State, and his influence would place Lincoln at once in command of more or less business. From every point of view the change seems to have been wise; yet Lincoln made it with foreboding.

To practise law he must abandon his business as surveyor, which was bringing him a fair income; he must for a time, at least, go without a certain income. If he failed, what then? The uncertainty weighed on him heavily, the more so because he was burdened by the debts left from his store and because he was constantly called upon to aid his father's family. Thomas Lincoln had remained in Coles County, but he had not, in these six years in which his son had risen so rapidly, been able to get anything more than a poor livelihood from his farm. The sense of responsibility Lincoln had towards his father's family made it the more difficult for him to undertake a new profession. His decision was made, however, and as soon as the session of the Tenth Assembly was over he started for Springfield. His first appearance there is as pathetic as amusing.

"He had ridden into town," says Joshua Speed, "on a borrowed horse, with no earthly property save a pair of sad

dle-bags containing a few clothes. I was a merchant at Springfield, and kept a large country store, embracing drygoods, groceries, hardware, books, medicines, bed-clothes, mattresses-in fact, everything that the country needed. Lincoln came into the store with his saddle-bags on his arm. He said he wanted to buy the furniture for a single bed. The mattress, blankets, sheets, coverlid, and pillow, according to the figures made by me, would cost seventeen dollars. He said that perhaps was cheap enough; but small as the price was, he was unable to pay it. But if I would credit him till Christmas, and his experiment as a lawyer was a success, he would pay then; saying in the saddest tone, 'If I fail in this I do not know that I can ever pay you.' As I looked up at him I thought then, and I think now, that I never saw a sadder face.

"I said to him: 'You seem to be so much pained at contracting so small a debt, I think I can suggest a plan by which you can avoid the debt, and at the same time attain your end. I have a large room with a double bed upstairs, which you are very welcome to share with me.'

'Where is your room?' said he.

"Upstairs,' said I, pointing to a pair of winding stairs which led from the store to my room.

"He took his saddle-bags on his arm, went upstairs, set them on the floor, and came down with the most changed expression of countenance. Beaming with pleasure, he exclaimed:

""Well, Speed, I am moved.'"

Another friend, William Butler, with whom Lincoln had become intimate at Vandalia, took him to board; life at Springfield thus began under as favorable auspices as he could hope for.

After Chicago, Springfield was at that day the most promising city in Illinois. It had some fifteen hundred inhabitants, and the removal of the capital was certain to bring many more. Already, in fact, the town felt the effect. "The owner of real estate sees his property rapidly enhancing in value,” declared the "Sangamon Journal;" "the merchant anticipates

a large accession to our population and a corresponding additional sale for his goods; the mechanic already has more contracts offered him for building and improvements than he can execute; the farmer anticipates the growth of a large and important town, a market for the varied products of his farm; indeed, every class of our citizens look to the future with confidence, that, we trust, will not be disappointed."

The effect was apparent too, in society. "We used to eat all together," said an old man who in the early thirties came to Springfield as a hostler; "but about this time some one came along and told the people they oughtn't to do so, and then the hired folks ate in the kitchen." This differentiation was apparent to Lincoln and a little discouraging. He was thinking at the time of this removal of marrying, but he soon saw that it was quite out of the question for him to support a wife in Springfield.

"I am afraid you would not be satisfied," he wrote the young woman, "there is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here, which it would be your doom to see without sharing it. You would have to be poor, without the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently ?"

Lincoln's idea of marrying Mary Owens, of whom he asked this question, was the result of a Quixotic sense of honor which had curiously blinded him to the girl's real feeling for him. The affair had begun in the fall of 1836, when a woman of his acquaintance who was going to Kentucky on a visit, proposed laughingly to bring back a sister of hers on condition that Lincoln marry her.

"I of course accepted the proposal," Lincoln wrote afterwards in a letter to Mrs. O. H. Browning, "for you know I could not have done otherwise had I really been averse to it; but privately, between you and me, I was